The City of Tulsa says it’s exploring ways to not spend more money than it brings in.
Mayor Monroe Nichols said at the mayor-council budget retreat Wednesday that he wants to close a gap between the city’s revenue and expenses. The city’s general fund balance, which the city can use for any service it provides, is projected to be more than $15 million short of what it spends in fiscal year 2025 ending June 30.
The general fund is primarily comprised of money generated from city sales tax.
While the gap is relatively small compared to the nearly $394 million budgeted out — and the budget is balanced thanks to reserves — City Finance Director Christy Basgall said it’s not sustainable.
“We need to bring that into alignment, whether that’s additional revenue or reducing expenses,” she said.
Basgall said employee raises in recent years and the construction of Zink Lake are two things that contributed to the latest revenue gap. She suggested closing long-vacant city positions as a way to save.
If estimates hold, it would be the second fiscal year that the general fund balance sees red. The city was more than $22 million over budget in fiscal year 2024, in part because of its response to the Father’s Day derecho in 2023.
Nichols said that the pandemic years got cities across the country in the habit of spending money up front.
“That made a lot of sense — all hands on deck. Now we’re going back to a time where it’s a little more traditional in the way that you have to budget, and borrowing from fund balances is not really a good long-term way to do it,” Nichols said.
Rather than cut unfilled city positions, Nichols said officials should see if there are ways city services can run more efficiently.
Both Basgall and Nichols are asking city department heads to look at ways they can reduce operational costs to close the gap.
“I’ve been really amazed as we’ve started this conversation,” Nichols said. "I thought there’d be a lot more in the way of anxiety. What I have found is city employees saying, 'Here are some things that we can probably do differently to put us on a pathway to success from a budget standpoint.'”
